1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to Internet enabled personal digital devices. More particularly, the invention relates to selectively storing Internet related information on a personal digital device in order to shorten the Internet response/query time of the device while also increasing user exposure to selected Internet sites.
2. Background of the Related Art
The advancement of communications systems, and in particular cellular-type communications networks, has brought portable telecommunications capability to countless subscribers throughout the world. Although the cellular-type communications networks are primarily used for person to person voice transmissions, there is a growing trend to utilize the cellular-type communications networks to support data transfer operations between a remote computer and a portable computing device.
One example of a technology area that is capitalizing on the portable computing capabilities provided by cellular-type telecommunications networks is personal digital assistant-type devices. A personal digital assistant (PDA) is generally a compact portable electronic processor and memory configuration that is configured to perform specialized operations. PDAs are commercially available in various models and configurations designed to meet various user-specific needs. For example, portable message pads, palm top computers, handheld information organizers, portable digital assistants, and handheld digital processors, along with other publicly available electronic devices, are all PDA-type devices designed and configured with specific capabilities.
Additionally, these types of devices are currently being manufactured with built-in cellular based communications systems, as well as being retrofitted to interact with external cellular communications devices, such as a cell phones and portable modems. Therefore, current PDAs may include the ability to bi-directionally interact with the Internet through a cellular and/or radio link. The cellular and/or radio link generally communicates with a Public Switched Telephone Network (PTSN), which may communicate with the various computers, servers, networks, and/or other computer devices that form the Internet. Therefore, the link allows the PDA to transmit data to and from various Internet sites and/or other computer networks in communication with a PTSN.
Although Internet enabled portable computing devices and service providers are generally available to the public, the efficiency of current Internet enabled portable computing devices and services, and in particular the bandwidth available for the link portion of the data transmission, is substantially slower than that provided by conventional PTSN based services. The smaller available bandwidth and lower data transmission rates substantially affects the performance of Internet enabled PDAs, as the time required to uplink a user query to the Internet as well as the time required to download responses to user queries from the Internet is substantially slower than PTSN based services.
Despite the differential between the data transmission rate of conventional PTSN systems and current mobile cellular-based systems, there is a substantial demand for the flexibility offered by the portable cellular-based systems. As such, various Internet sites, advertisers, and other interested parties are attempting to establish services designed to facilitate use of the cellular-based systems. However, given the vast quantity of information available on the Internet, it is extremely difficult to lure cellular-based users to any specific Internet site. This causes a fundamental problem, as the majority of Internet sites are funded primarily through advertising revenue generated by posting advertisements on the respective Internet sites. Therefore, if a sufficient number of cellular-based users are not viewing an Internet site designed to cater to those specific users, it stands to reason that the advertising dollars will diminish and the Internet site will eventually dissolve.
Therefore, there exists a need for an apparatus and/or method for optimizing the data transmission process in Internet enabled PDAs. Furthermore, there exists a need for an apparatus and/or method for increasing user exposure to selected Internet sites related to the PDA and/or services associated with the PDA.